


What the Tide Brought In

by Felinix



Category: Naruto
Genre: Academy Years, BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Naruto, BAMF Yamanaka Ino, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Kidfic, LITERALLY, Lore - Freeform, Male-Female Friendship, Mokuton Sakura, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Genin, RIP, a lot of sealwork, invented lore, no beta we die like idiots, or rather eventual BAMF Sakura, seals (naruto ones), sealwork, since there really is nothing about the uzumaki massacre, uzumaki!sakura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-01-13 16:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21178217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felinix/pseuds/Felinix
Summary: The Mokuton didn't come from the Senju part of the Shodaime Hokage's blood.In which Haruno Sakura is a (secret) Uzumaki.





	1. the sea is a vicious mistress

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Waves](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10894947) by [IncompleteSentanc (Erava)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erava/pseuds/IncompleteSentanc). 
**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath of uzushio's destruction isn't pretty.

Uzushiogakure was annihilated by Kumo and Kiri. No one survived.

At least, that was how the official story went.

It was true, in part. Uzushio was attacked by the combined bloodthirsty forces of Kumo and Kiri. All Uzushio citizens were completely wiped out, none on the island survived.

Except for those who were off the island during the massacre. Uzumaki Kushina, obviously, but she was under the protection of Konohagakure. And Kumo still tasted the bitterness after its humiliating defeat. They decided they would go for easier pickings.

Such as the Uzumaki merchants on a trade route to Kiri. 

During the Uzushio slaughter, the merchant ship- nine merchants, sixteen sailors, two shinobi, twenty-seven in all- was blissfully unaware of the killing of their kin. The news had yet to reach most of the civilian population of Kiri. 

However, Kiri's shinobi was very aware of it.

It came as no surprise when the Mizukage ordered the twenty-seven Uzumaki killed. 

It was easy, really. The port logs showed the recent arrivals' names, and the distinctive bright red hair was an immediate signal flare. The merchants didn't even see the assassins coming, the sailors were killed in their sleep, the shinobi put up a scrappy fight but eventually succumbed to the force of five Kiri hunter-nin.

At the end of the day- two days after the massacre- two shinobi, sixteen sailors, and eight merchants were killed.

Along with one Kiri woman with rare red hair who had the misfortune to be seen bartering with an Uzushio trader. She died with a senbon to the throat, innocent. 

(But then again, they all were.)

The only survivor was one Uzumaki who had the luck to be born with dusky pink hair instead of the Uzumaki crimson. 

The man was quickly forced to readjust to the death of his clan and assassination of his fellow shipmates, lest he be discovered and killed himself. He changed his name to his mother's, Kizashi. Kizashi, no surname, whose profession was a traveling merchant, was born.

(Kizashi's mother had been partial Senju. He had inherited his mother's penchant for bad puns, his father's laugh lines and wacky hair, and none of their hair colors. Thankfully. His pink hair protected his identity as a lone minnow in a pool of sharks.)

Kizashi, like all Uzumaki merchants, carried storage seals. Made by one of many Uzumaki sealing masters, the best in the world. Incredibly valuable. 

Kizashi carried six. 

He traded five to a Kiri merchant (cuttthroat, like all Kiri citizens. But even she was not immune to the lure of an Uzumaki storage seal, which Kizashi had "gotten" from a merchant who got it from a shinobi who had been at the Uzushio massacre and was brave enough to filch it from the corpse of an Uzumaki. Kizashi had felt sick as he told the lie.)

But it was enough to barter safe passage into his last remaining refuge- to Uzushio's historic ally, the Senju. Which meant Konoha. 

Until he found that Konoha had accepted Uzushio for dead. 

Kizashi went to his one last shelter- a sealing shop. 

Every Uzumaki knew seals like the back of their hand. They had grown up surrounded by it, they were the best sealing masters in the world by far. (This, Kizashi now took with a bitter pill, as according to rumors their fuuinjutsu skill was what led to their demise.) No one else was even in the same league. The closest the other nations got was Konoha, due to their alliance with Uzushio. 

It wasn't up to Uzushio standards. It wasn't even Uzushio's distinctive seashell sealing technique. 

But it was seals, and it was home.

The sealing shop was small, one of the few in Konoha. (Compared to the many in Uzushio, the shops in Konoha were nothing. But beggars can't be choosers, he supposes.) It was on the edge of the merchant district, tucked between a tailor and a weaponry store. It was run by a civilian woman who was trained in seals, Haruno Mebuki.

Kizashi took two steps into the wooden interior, lined with paper tags and inked seals and yellowed scrolls, before he was drawn into a conversation.

"You are new here. Interested in seals?"

Although not on the same level as the Uzushio sealing masters, Mebuki had a gift for observation and inference that she used to the greatest potential in her work. Her seals were fundamentally different from what Kizashi was used to, but they were seals and he could talk about them all day. Kizashi hadn't gone into sealwork like many in Uzushio, in fact, it had been one of his less-liked courses in school, but after so many weeks without one taste of what he was used to (Uzushio was what he was used to, and Uzushio he would never have again) Kizashi was desperate for a glimpse of it. He was engaged Mebuki's curiosity with ease, and the two struck up a bond. 

Kizashi returned to the shop every day. Mebuki was there at the shop every day. They talked until the shop closed and maybe a little after that, if they were on a particularly interesting esoteric topic.

And the pattern continued. 

Until Kizashi slipped up. He showed his last Uzushio storage seal.

Haruno Mebuki wasn't stupid, and she'd read too many sealing books than she really cared to remember. She recognized the Uzushio sealing style, the characteristic spiral pattern of the seal.

She knew that there weren't any Uzushio seals left that could be easily obtained by a man like Kizashi- an immigrant, new to the Fire Country, penniless- unless...

"Are you an Uzumaki?"

The cat was out of the bag.

Too soon.

Whoops.

And so Haruno Mebuki was sworn to secrecy, Kizashi had an ocean's worth of sealing questions hurled at him, and one year later, the two got married. Three years, thirty-five days after the Uzumaki massacre.

There were four Uzumaki left in the world.

Four years, ninety days after the Uzumaki massacre, a fifth Uzumaki entered the world.

Six months, thirteen days later, the first Uzumaki died as a sixth Uzumaki was born.

The same year Haruno-Uzumaki Sakura was born, Uzumaki Kushina died and Uzumaki Naruto was born.

There were five Uzumaki left. Again.

* * *

Five years, one-hundred sixty-seven days after the Uzumaki massacre, Haruno Kizashi was diagnosed with epilepsy. His brain was deteriorating as damage increased.

A medic-nin might have been able to heal it, but medic-nin were for shinobi, and Haruno Kizashi was a civilian. 

His brain damage worsened with each seizure. The time he had left decreased with each seizure.

Kizashi devoted the rest of his life to one mission.

Scribble down as many tales about Uzushio as he could.

Scrolls upon scrolls upon scrolls were filled. The handwriting legibility became worse with each one. Upon the last scroll, it was barely readable. They were diligently sealed into the last storage seal, centuries of stories, recorded by one man. 

Uzumaki Kaiso died six years, seven days after the Uzumaki massacre.

His will left the storage seal for his daughter.

There were four Uzumaki left. 

But for Haruno-Uzumaki Sakura, she might as well have been the last one in the world.


	2. watch as she stalks her quarry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Naruto's first jutsu invention might not be the Oiroke no Jutsu after all.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm gonna be Hokage!!"

Sakura doesn't think too much of it, at first. The shout came from the ramen stand- Ichiraki, was it?- and she was merely bypassing the merchant district on her way to the park to meet up with Ino.

Until the word "Uzumaki" registers in her head.

Sakura had been weaned off stories of Uzushio. From when she was born, she'd been told folklore, history, descriptions of the lost Uzushiogakure. When she turned six, her mother had handed her a stack of Uzushio scrolls, handwritten with black ink and messy kanji. (Kaa-chan had seemed sad as she told Sakura that was the last birthday gift her Tou-san would ever give her.)

But according to one of the legends she had read, when spirits died their souls would go to one of the nine fox deities- the eight-tailed one, Shinuto- and watch over their loved ones until they are reunited.

So Tou-san wasn't dead. Just on standby, Sakura's six-year-old mind had concluded. Waiting.

Anyway, Sakura had grown up with Uzushio stories. She worshiped the Uzumaki trickster gods, she admired the clan themselves for their brash kindness, their unhesitating bravery, their boldness.

Unlike Sakura herself, who was shy and small, the Uzumaki seemed larger than life. Courageous, daring, everything she wasn't and aspired to.

Sakura had just finished all of her sixth birthday gift when she concluded,

Haruno Sakura wanted to be an Uzumaki when she grew up.

_Shannaro._

So when the word "Uzumaki" resonated out of the ramen stand like a declaration to the world, Sakura had spun around and stepped inside before she knew what she was doing. The park could wait. Uzumaki could not.

It was a little boy.

Around her age, seven, eight, maybe? Spiky blond hair, hands waving wildly as he punctuates every word with an exclamation point. He's loud and brash and unafraid. Uzumaki, her brain whispers.

An older man, white hair and wrinkles looks on fondly. His grandfather?

It wasn't until the ramen chief asked her (a little confusedly) if she wanted something, that Sakura realized she was staring.

Flustered, Sakura automatically stammers the name of something randomly picked off the menu.

She's eating... miso ramen. Great. She doesn't even like ramen.

This Uzumaki Naruto better appreciate the lengths she's going for him.

* * *

Sakura is two bites in. It's been thirty minutes, and she hates ramen just as much as she remembered. The boy is still here, her ramen is cold, Ino will be so annoyed with her. She spins her chopsticks in the noodles, perfecting the spiral shape she's been working on for the past seven minutes. Spiral for Uzushio, her mind agrees.

So far Uzumaki Naruto- name aside- doesn't seem that interesting. He blabbers about his class (most of whom avoid him), about his rival(? It seems like an extremely one-sided rivalry), about his teacher (who hates him, by the way). He seems like a normal kid.

Sakura's starting to feel like a stalker.

Oh. Maybe she is a stalker.

Or maybe she should choke down her ramen and leave, like a normal person.

_I don't even like ramen_, she grumbles inwardly.

"Oh! Are you not going to eat that?! Can I have it?" A face suddenly intrudes upon her preparation to swallow her noodles without tasting anything.

Blond hair. Blue eyes. The same face that she's probably been staring at for the last half-hour. His cheeks were streaked with whisker marks, Sakura registers. Three on each side. It makes him look mischievous. (Like the six-tailed fox deity, Damarua.)

Sakura freezes. She's been caught, is the first thought that comes to mind. Then Naruto gestures to the ramen. "Sooooo, can I?"

"Take it. I don't want it." Sakura pushes the bowl towards him, bidding it good riddance. Forever, if the world had any mercy.

The grandfather(?) looks exasperated, hiding his face behind gnarled fingers. He removes his hand, and Sakura freezes again.

Sarutobi Hiruzen. Sandaime Hokage, her brain supplies. The current Hokage of Konohagakure, the most powerful shinobi in the village. He's so far above her level that it's not even funny.

So she's been staring at the kid of the Hokage who could very well get her thrown into jail for being a stalker at any moment?

This situation keeps getting worse and worse.

Except for Naruto, who's gulping down the ramen like it's air. Sakura wonders if he's tasting anything at all, and how long it'll take him to choke.

(She hopes she won't have to do the Heimlich maneuver, she's only read about it in theory. It seems tricky.)

"Naruto-kun, you can't just beg others for food." The Sandaime sounds like it's a lost cause already. It seems like a well-worn argument.

Naruto makes a muffled noise, his mouth full. He looks like a ramen-addicted chipmunk.

He swallows. The bowl is empty. Completely.

_Uzumaki are amazing._

"Sorry!! Um..."

"Haruno Sakura." Sakura squeaks. 

"Sorry, Sakura-chan! I'll make it up to you! We can..."

"You can go to the park," The Hokage suggests. He looks like he's hoping very hard that they'll get out of his hair already. Judging from the skyscraper stack of empty ramen bowls by Naruto's seat, it's not an empty claim. 

"We can go to the park!"

Well, she was heading there anyway.

"Alright."  


* * *

"His last name is Uzumaki!" Sakura persists.

Okay, she knew Ino would be mad about being passed over and left waiting for half an hour, but being dragged into the playground playhouse immediately after showing up seemed... a lot like Ino, actually. Sakura barely got time to make an excuse to Naruto about a "private conversation".

Ino rubs her eyes in exasperation. "Is this going to be common now? Are you going to stalk every person that so much as mentions the name 'Uzumaki'?"

Sakura huffs. "No!"

"Exactly how long have you been lurking in the shadows behind that boy?"

"His name is Naruto, and it was thirty minutes." Sakura pauses, "About. Maybe more."

"Right... And you're so obsessed with him because...?"

"I'm not obsessed!!" Sakura crosses her arms.

"Mmhmm. Keep telling yourself that."

Ino's way too small to be so good at the disbelieving eyebrow arch, Sakura thinks. Unfair.

Naruto pops his head into the playhouse. "Are you guys done? Can I come in yet?"

Sakura slaps her hand over Ino's ready-to-protest mouth. "Yes!"

The blond crawls through the circular entrance. "It's small in here."

"We're small." Ino points out.

"Does this mean I can't go in when I'm bigger?" Naruto looks genuinely put out by this fact.

"I hear that shinobi are able to do many amazing things with their chakra-"

"Read it when you were going through the entire library collection, maybe." Sakura elbows Ino for that comment.

"-Maybe there's a minimizing jutsu." She finishes, proud. She didn't stutter! She sounded confident!

Naruto's eyes are wide. "Where did you learn that? Can I learn it?"

"There isn't one yet, we have to make one."

"Actually," Ino interjects, "I know the Akimichi clan has an enlarging jutsu. A minimizing jutsu isn't that far off."

"Isn't that a clan secret, Ino?"

The Yamanaka waves Sakura off. "It's mostly public information, anyway. As long as I don't teach you guys how to use it or how it's done, it's not technically private information."

"Cool!!" Naruto exclaims.

Ino preens under the attention. 

"But that's an enlarging jutsu, not a minimizing jutsu." Sakura points out. "And you can't teach us how to do it."

"Then we'll make a minimizing jutsu!!"

"That'll be hard."

"So's being Hokage, dattebayo."

"You're not Hokage!"

"I'll be Hokage!! Just wait and see!"

"So... are we making a minimizing jutsu?" Sakura turns them back on track.

"Yeah! It sounds cool!"

Sakura ponders. "Well. We'll have to do research."

"I can ask Chouji for more information."

"This is gonna be so great, dattebayo!!"

The trio huddle inside their tiny playhouse and plan world domination via minimizing jutsu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, childhood.
> 
> okay yep ik at the end of chapter one it implies that Sakura knows she's an Uzumaki. and in chapter two... she doesn't. rest assured, this is intentional! and I can't really go into it without giving away a lot of plot soooo um;; bear with me please!! 
> 
> Uzumaki lore is completely made up, but they seem like the kind of pranksters that would worship fox spirits.
> 
> I dunno where this fic is going and where the minimizing jutsu even came from. uhh. 
> 
> sakura/ino/naruto friendship, hell yeah.


	3. a revelation in her own right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which three children have three different yet similar ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i live on your comments, guys! Thanks to all those that commented, and asked questions that I didn't know the answer to and thus had to make up but it advanced the plot so it's all forgiven!! hope you enjoy the frequent (so far) updates!

Naruto wouldn't be here if he could.

Except it wasn't allowed, apparently. And it really hurt when Yurei-sensei dragged him to class. It was like she took the most uncomfortable route possible. His back stung in the memory of bruises. 

So Naruto sat in the back of his class, far right seat. The desk was decorated with variations of insults scribbled in marker, layered on top of each other so thick that you couldn't see the wood anymore. 

Which was fine with Naruto.

It was far better than the first day of class, when the words "monster", "demon", "useless" stared him straight in eye, sharpie stark against the brown. 

(He had to be tied down and bodily carried back to class, but at least the Niidaime Hokage's face was striped with orange when he was done.)

So Naruto sat in the back, leaning over his tainted desk. He was too tired to keep his head up, and it wasn't like he was going to suddenly become a genius regarding whatever they were teaching now... henges?

"The transformation technique will temporarily allow the user to replicate another form, be it human, animal, or even an object." Yurei-sensei points at the whiteboard. There's picture of a ninja turning into a frog there, but the frog's eyes were too big and it looked like a lump. "Of course, you won't be practicing this until third-year, but we can go over the theory now-"

"This seems useless, who'd want to turn into a frog?" The student in front of him mutters. 

Yurei-sensei turns, honing in like a shark upon the scent of blood. "A henge is a vital skill for shinobi, genin to jounin alike. If you'd ever like to succeed in infiltration missions, I suggest you listen.

"It can help you change your appearance immediately, from a ninja to a child. Of course, if you're going on a long-term mission that requires long-term henges, you'll have to invest more chakra..."

Uzumaki Naruto was struck with an idea.

* * *

Sakura didn't exactly have a goal in mind when she ducked into her room.

Her feet take her to the bookshelf on autopilot, or to be more specific the left section of the bookcase. It was stacked with scrolls, read and reread many times over. 

She slips out her favorite one, which is sitting on the top of the pile.

The Prankster Ghost, the title says in messy ink. It's still relatively neat compared to some of the other scrolls.

Sakura knew this book better than her own self.

It goes like this-

The six-tailed fox kami, Damarua, had encountered a mortal. 

The kitsune and the human, bonded by their shared love of pranks, had become close friends. That is, until the human, reaching the end of her mortal lifespan, prepared to die.

Her last wish was to perform one last prank, the greatest prank. Her magnum opus. 

Damarua agreed to help this human, for the kitsune had spent so much time with her that Damarua would mourn her loss. And the idea of a trick was tantalizing, as the six-tails lived for them.

The day of the mortal's death, Damarua transformed from a six-tailed fox deity to a small, spindly human. Fragile, on the brink of this life and the next.

When the eight-tails came for the mortal's soul, Damarua came instead. The eight-tails, Shinuto, who presided over the death gate, didn't look too deep over a mortal's soul. Damarua's transformation was so detailed it seemed real. 

Shinuto collected the rest of the souls that were scheduled that day, and escorted them all to the passage between this life and the next. The spirits passed through the gate, and it was only on the other side that Damarua revealed the trick, releasing the transformation. 

The eight-tails was embarrassed and furious, and left the six-tails there. Normal deities couldn't pass through the gate, with Shinuto being an exception, so Damarua was stuck there for centuries. It was some very peaceful centuries for the rest of the world. 

Shinuto headed back to collect the mortal's actual soul, only to find that it fled.

The spirit was never found, and is still pranking to this day.

The tale continued for several more stories about Damarua and the runaway spirit, but Sakura frowns at the scroll. Although she liked the story, something had never sat right with her. 

If kami were unable to pass through the death gate, how did Damarua get through in the first place?

* * *

The weekly Ino-Shika-Cho meetings were actually surprisingly boring.

But then again, when they meet up once a week, there wasn't much to fight about, Ino reflects. Besides, it wasn't like they had any long-running feuds anyway. That could be left to the Uchiha and the Hyuuga, whose antagonism was a constant issue in clan politics.

As the Nara would say, _troublesome_. 

Not to mention that the Nara were probably too lazy to be arguing constantly with someone they see daily. 

The only time Ino saw Shikamaru truly fired up was during a shogi competition against a good opponent. Maybe Sakura would be worthy of defeating Shika? Her friend was certainly smart enough.

She'd have to organize a meeting later.

"Stop plotting." Said Nara swats her on the head.

Ino scowls at him and swats his ponytail. "Stop being lazy."

"Troublesome."

"I don't think Shika is capable of not being lazy." Chouji munched on his omnipresent bag of chips. 

"Oh yeah, that reminds me! What do you know about your clan's jutsu?"

Chouji tilts his head. "It's based on a technique called the Calorie Control technique, or Karorii Kontorouru. That converts the calories we eat," Chouji raises his bag of chips, "-to chakra that expands our body to perform the Expansion Jutsu. But if the user can't use the Calorie Control technique yet, like me, they eat a pill that converts the calories for them.

"That's all I have learned so far."

"That's great, thanks, Chouji!!"

"What's with the interest?" Shikamaru grumbles. 

"Oh yeah, I might have a potential shogi partner for you..."

The Nara arches an eyebrow, clearly not convinced at the (rather obvious) subject change, but allows himself to be distracted. 

"Who?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still a sucker for uzushio lore!! I based the story on a mixup of greek and japanese legends, and most of the uzushio stories will be based on that! 
> 
> errr chapters will be short until I get the story rolling because I have no idea where it's gonna go rn.
> 
> (the info about chouji's family jutsu was found on the naruto wiki)


	4. waves crash upon waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ino is a very impulsive person. Naruto is a very impulsive person.
> 
> Why does anyone let them stay in one room together?
> 
> (In which shenanigans ensue, and helping out with chores is more interesting than usual.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a very, very slow build. Whoops. ^^
> 
> The entire chapter is basically naruto/saku/ino interactions, we'll get back to plot... next chapter!

"Sakura-chan's not here?" Naruto asks, popping his head into the playhouse.

Ino doesn't look up from her flower crown. "Nuh uh, not yet. Today's her chore day, she's helping her mom take care of the shop."

"Sakura's mom has a shop?" The blond slides in to squeeze next to Ino.

Ino huffs but shuffles over to make room. "Yeah. Sakura's mom has a shop. It specializes in... seals, I think?"

"Ooh, like the ninja seals?" 

"Mmhmm. I've only been in there once, though. We usually go to my house to play." 

"What do you guys usually play anyway?" Naruto frowns, suddenly struck by the fact that Sakura and Ino are much closer than Naruto will ever be to either of them. 

That's depressing. 

"We make flower crowns, my parents own a flower shop." Ino holds up her daisy crown, "Like the one I'm making right now."

"Do all your parents own shops?" Did every parent own a shop? Naruto didn't know this!

Ino snorts. "No. We can go visit Sakura though, maybe we can help her."

"Let's do it, dattebayo!!"

* * *

They find Sakura wobbling under a heap of seals. 

"Hey! Sakura-chan!" Naruto opens the door just in time to see the stack of scrolls in her arms tip over. A plume of dust erupts, hitting Naruto full-on in the face.

"Oh- _cough, cough_\- what is that?!- _cough_\- a dirt seal-? _oh my god_-" 

Sakura hurriedly pushes them both out the door. "One sec, lemme go clean that up!" 

Another person shouts just before the door can swing closed, "There's a _reason_ we don't allow customers in the shop during cleaning period!"

The door clicks shut. 

"That went well." Ino remarks.

* * *

It turns out, surprise arrival and all, Haruno Mebuki was pleased to see them. After yelling at them for several eternities, of course.

By that, Ino means pleased to put them to work.

She learns several things in quick succession:

\- Ino and Naruto are in charge of sorting the back room.   
\- The back room is _boring_.  
\- There are over a hundred seals in there.  
\- The seals were collected from around the world.  
\- A very stern warning that the seals are off limits does not stop Naruto from challenging Ino to channel chakra into one.  
\- Ino should really stop falling for stupid dares. Wait. Too late.

* * *

It turns out daring Ino to channel chakra into a seal was a horrible idea in retrospect, Naruto observes.

Naruto didn't know what happened! One minute she was here, the next she touched the seal and she was gone!! There wasn't even any special effects, Naruto muses, pouting. 

Maybe he should ask for help? Sakura's mother would probably know what that seal did, right? 

Then Naruto recalls Haruno-san's rage. 

Never mind.

* * *

There were a lot of seals in the Back Room, Sakura knows. She has never been able to sort them all, and can count the number of times she went in there on two hands. It's always dark and the shadows form monsters and the seals seem more treacherous in the Back Room. Plus, according to kaa-san organizing all the seals would take days, and even longer for a child. Sakura guesses no one had ever bothered to sort them since tou-san passed, and the seals have been agglomerating since then.

'_Maybe Ino and Naruto will be able to manage it._' Ino was good at flower-arranging, after all, the best in their class. Flower-arrangement wasn't _that_ different from seals, was it?

...Or maybe this was wishful thinking and better left to the adults. The pinkette sighs. Kaa-san was always lecturing about the importance of knowing seals intimately before using them, and sending two Academy students to sort a large collection like the Back Room seems dangerous. What if they got hurt? Sakura's eyebrows scrunch. She didn't want Ino and Naruto to get hurt. Maybe she should check on them? 

But it's not like Ino and Naruto were going to be running around activating seals, anyway. Without chakra, seals were just slips of paper. Not harmful at all.

Sakura continues on her task.

She was worrying about nothing.

_Right?_

* * *

"I'm not panicking, I'm not panicking,_ I'm not panicking-_"

Naruto was panicking.

It wasn't his fault there was twenty-gazillion seals in this tiny dark creepy room!! Which was way scarier without Ino around!

Actually, maybe he shouldn't have brought up the creepiness.

And technically, Ino was here. Just... incapacitated. 

Naruto's hands flutter anxiously over the carefully inked paper. In his left hand was the seal that Ino disappeared in, the black lines smudged slightly. It had a conical type of spiral that swirled inwards toward the center of the square paper, between the spiral were inter-spaced runes that got bigger the closer they got to the middle. It caused an oddly hypnotic sensation when you stared at it for too long.

He didn't want to risk channeling chakra into the seal, because he wasn't stupid enough to trap himself inside as well! But that meant he had to find the other part of the seal externally. 

Which was like finding a needle in a haystack. 

Or rather, finding another piece of hay in the haystack, because at least needles and hay didn't look _exactly alike and there weren't twenty-gazillion of them!_

To anyone who wasn't versed in seals, the best one could do was recognize some runes of a specific sealing style. But since runes differed between countries and cultures, you couldn't fully understand a new sealing style unless it was deconstructed.

But that was still way past Naruto's current level of understanding, which was "some seals go boom". 

Thus, the plan of action was-

Rudely interrupted when the door slammed open. 

"Hey, Naruto-kun! How is it going?" Sakura asks. 

Naruto whips around, spotting the silhouette of his friend outlined against the light of hallway. "G-great, dattebayo!!" He pulls Sakura inside the back room and closes the door.

"What's wrong? Where's Ino?" The pinkette asks, eyes adjusting to the darkness. She points to the paper in her hand. "Is that a seal?"

Naruto knew salvation when he saw it. "Yeah! I'm looking for one that's like this! To... to sort! Obviously."

Sakura frowns. Naruto was a bad liar. "Okay... then?" Well, Naruto wouldn't lie to her unless it was something urgent, right? She hadn't known him for that long but he didn't seem like a spontaneous liar. She'll go along with it. The girl tugs the seal out of Naruto's hands. "This is a seashell seal, see how it curves? We'll need to find another one that's the same as this."

"How long will it take?"

"Um, a hour, maybe?"

"What?! She can't wait that long!!" Naruto shouted. Sakura startled. Who? Ino? A slow, horrible comprehension dawned. Sakura scanned over the seal again. She knew this one, it was familiar, what was it? It was... The spiral was a-

_Reverse matrix_. 

Reverse matrixes were for when an object would be stored into the seal. The backwards placing of the runes would suck the object inside, and it could be activated with a touch of chakra. The most popular form of this was the storage seal, which could be used to hold many useful necessities. 

Including people, apparently. 

And Ino was in there.

Ino was in a storage seal, alone, with no way out.

Suddenly, Naruto's desperation made much more sense.

Sakura coaxes her fingers into a hand sign. Her mother had shown it to her, and the pinkette replicated it tentatively. 

_"Shiiru Mitsukero!" _

A wave of chakra swept the room. Sakura's eyes fluttered shut. A net billows out, dots of yellows and reds in varying shades popping where the net lands. If Sakura concentrates, she can make out runes in the color. She searches down, the seal in her hand is a slightly-greenish pink. There's nothing like it in her vision. She squeezed her fingers tighter. Her net creeps further.

_There_, under layers of sunshine-yellow. Greenish-pink, like algae on cherry blossoms. 

Sakura digs under the rapidly fading yellow until she reaches it. 

Reverse matrix. Compared to the earlier one, this matrix's runes are slightly different.

Just a touch of chakra, and Ino will be here!

But even the thought of chakra is enough to make Sakura feel sick.

She hands the seal to Naruto. "Channel chakra into this."

The blond complies. There's a thud as something much heavier than paper hits the floor.

Ino scowls. "We are never telling _anyone_ about this."


	5. unearthing, or unseaing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there is seals, sleepovers, and shogi. not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter title makes no sense, but i've been trying to keep them all sea-related. key word- trying. sorry about the duplicate chapters last time, it's fixed now!

"Hey, Kaa-chan?" 

"Yes, Sakura?"

"Can Ino and Naruto stay over? They've helped a lot, and it's gonna be dark outside so they can't get home!!" Sakura pleads, tugging on her mother's shirt. 

Mebuki sighs. "I don't know, Saku-chan. Ino's parents will be worried." 

"But they helped!! A lot! And it'll... it'll be dangerous outside at night!"

"Go ask Ino, okay?"

Said girl trots into the kitchen with the poise of a queen. "I sent tou-san a message already, and it's fine with me." 

"Me too, dattebayo!" Naruto runs after Ino. They had evidently been eavesdropping behind the doorway.

Mebuki shakes her head in what Sakura recognizes as surrender. "I suppose, since you kids did such great work. I'll get the guest futon." 

Ino bows, Naruto hurriedly copying her. The trio scamper out of the kitchen, but that doesn't stop their victory cheer from reaching Mebuki's ears. 

She chuckles.

* * *

"We did it, Sakura!!"

"And Ino."

"And Ino! Phase one of Plan Minimizing Jutsu complete!" Naruto shouts, exuberant. 

"What about Phase go-to-sleep?" Sakura groans, retreating underneath the blankets.

The blond frowns. "That's not a phase of our plan." 

"The plan has a stupid name anyway." Ino says. 

Naruto bristles, offended. "Does not!!"

"Does too!"

"Does not!"

"Ow! Guys, stop kicking!" Sakura pops her head out from under the pink cherry blossom-patterned covers. "Why are we all piled onto my futon anyway?! There's a guest futon!" Three kids didn't fit onto one futon without someone's foot ending up in someone's spine. 

"It's a vital step of Phase Two." Ino props herself up on the pillow. 

"Which is...?"

"Report!"

"Report what?"

"I dunno, I think Yurui-sensei said something about a mission report once? I wasn't listening." Naruto flips onto his back.

"'Mission report, a written essay about the details of your mission. To be turned in at the Mission Desk,' was what the textbook said. But we don't even have a mission." Sakura points out. 

"Sakura-chan, stop crushing my ideas!!"

"And Ino." Ino interjects, smug as a cat. "Think of it as a self-assigned mission. Anyway, let's start talking."

* * *

"...Saying that out loud sounded stupid." Sakura groans. 

"...It wasn't that bad...?" Naruto tries. "The folktale was pretty cool, dattebayo!" 

"I don't see how a spirit fox is supposed to help us."

"That's not helping me, Ino!"

"_Someone_ has to be the voice of reason when the real voice of reason is sprouting mythology." Ino teases. 

"Can I blame that fact on the _incredibly late_ time that you have decided to stay up to?" Sakura asks. 

"No! We're not done yet, we don't even have an idea!"

"I have an idea, why don't we go to bed?"

"Rejected."

"No way!"

Ino and Naruto share a high-five. Sakura shuffles under her blanket, sighing. "So we can use henges. But those only change you to another human that looks different. And we want to become miniature versions of ourselves as we are, not a child."

Naruto sulks at his idea being shot down.

"We might be able to use it later though...?" Sakura trails off at her attempt at comfort. Coughing awkwardly, she continues. "And Ino wants to try something like the Akimichi clan jutsu, but backwards."

"But if the expanding needs calories, then the minimizing needs us to get rid of calories. Then we can't turn back unless we... do.... what was it? Calorie something-something?" Naruto frowns in thought.

"Calorie control." Ino nods. "Even if we make the anti-Akimichi-jutsu, then we'd need to consume one of the pills to grow back once we use it. And normal bodies can't withstand those pills. The Akimichi are specially built to do so, if we tried we would die." 

"This is exhausting." Sakura pillows her head on Naruto's back. "What did you see in the seal, anyw-"

Ino glares murderously.

Sakura shudders and starts over. "Hypothetically, if one is sucked into a mystery seal, what would one see?" 

Ino sinks deeper into the blankets. They feel colder than they did a moment ago. "It was white, completely white. It never ended, I kept walking but I never reached anywhere, I couldn't find anything, _I thought I was never going to get out-!"_ The words dissolve into sobs, the belated fear overtaking Ino's false bravado. 

"I'm... sorry, Ino," Naruto sounds horribly unsure, like a small child. His eyes begin to water just like Ino's. "I didn't mean it, I swear!! I won't do it again!" 

Sakura's own eyes begin stinging. She wipes at them furiously. She almost lost Ino. She almost lost Ino!

The thought is terrifying.

It'll never happen again, Sakura vows. 

She knows she cannot keep that promise.

(It won't stop her from trying.)

* * *

"Kaa-chan! Can I learn about seals?" 

Mebuki arches an eyebrow. "What brought this on?"

"Oh, Naruto and Ino and I were talking last night, and I had an idea! Can I?"

"You're entering the Academy soon, anyway. I was planning on bringing it up." The woman smiles. "Of course."

* * *

"Ino, what's this."

The devil grins brightly. "My friends, of course. Shika, meet Sakura-chan and Naruto-kun!" 

Shikamaru groans. "Troublesome. Why did you bring them here?" This was his cloud-watching spot, and the trio were blocking the sun. 

"I think you mean, 'Thank you, Ino-sama. I'm so grateful for a new shogi partner.'" Ino huffs. 

Shikamaru sits up. Ino pushes Sakura towards him. "Go on, now. Play your old man game." 

"It's not an old man game..."

Sakura chuckles, a little apologetically. "Sorry, I don't know how to play. Ino said you'd teach me."

"...Troublesome." Shikamaru stands up and starts walking.

Ino claps her hands before dragging Naruto and Sakura after the Nara. "That's about the most excited he gets about anything."

* * *

Shogi is boring, Naruto concludes. When you're not the one playing, at least. Although Naruto has doubts whether it'll become less boring when he actually plays. 

There's only so long you can stare at two people frowning at each other and the board before it starts getting tedious. For Naruto, his span of attention lasted a good twelve seconds. Not including the million-word lecture Shikamaru gave on the nuances of shogi, which was almost worse than Yurui-sensei's speeches.

At least Yurui-sensei's speeches weren't followed by a practice in boredom. 

Naruto sighs, again, flipping through the large tome Sakura's mother gave her to study. It looked as boring as the shogi game behind him.

...It was actually pretty interesting. 

Ino shouts something. Naruto keeps reading. There's a brief commotion behind him, but Naruto's focus is taken up entirely by two words.

_Exploding tags._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the shogi match is tbc! next chapter! yay!!!
> 
> uzumaki naruto + exploding tags, do the math.
> 
> I wanted to show the aftermath of the stuck-inside-a-storage-seal thing, since one does not simply walk away out of that fine. don't try that at home, kids.


	6. ripples of devastation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whoever decided to let Uzumaki Naruto handle explosion seals has made a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shogi match finishes!!
> 
> I read a wikipedia article on shogi for this, yay
> 
> sorry for the lack of updates last week, i had several tests to study for!! update schedule is currently twice a week and will probably stay that way until my next crisis.
> 
> posted this as soon as I finished writing so if there's any grammar or spelling errors hit me up I'll fix them!

The only sound is the clink of the wooden pieces against the board. 

(And Naruto's grunts of concentration in the background, if that counted.)

Sakura idly flips a captured piece (a pawn) in her fingers. It was Shikamaru's turn, and if he'd move his rook one more spot he would be able to promote it. Or he could take one of her pawns, but that would open up an opportunity for a drop- the placing of one of her captured pieces back on the board.

Instead, Shikamaru moves his bishop.

Sakura's king is in check. _Clever._ Shikamaru says nothing, his face expressionless.

She moves her gold general, taking his bishop. 

He moves his rook, promoting it into a dragon king. He flips it over with a practiced hand. The beautiful calligraphy of 王將 stare her in the face. Shoji pieces are like seals, she muses. Delicately inked. 

The next few turns are mundane. A general here, a pawn there. Sakura acquires one more pawn and drops one of her own. Shikamaru takes her rook in a crafty play. 

Sakura moves her silver general. Shikamaru's king is in check. 

When Sakura glances at her opponent, he is sporting a rare grin. 

Of course, Sakura is then rebuffed neatly by the evasive movement of Shikamaru's king. Sakura can feel herself matching it.

The next few turns after that are lightning quick. It's obvious they're nearing the end of their game. 

Sakura loses.

* * *

"That was good." Ino says.

"Good?" Sakura asks, confused. "I lost."

The blonde stretches, yawning. She'd napped while Sakura and Shikamaru played. "Better than I would have done, at least. Neither I nor Chouji have ever had Shika in check before."

"He didn't look that impressed."

"He asked you to play again!" Naruto interjects.

"He said 'I wouldn't mind playing again.'"

"Same difference, it's Shika." Ino flips her hair. It's getting long enough to reach her back, Sakura notices. It's pretty.

"Also, Sakura-chan!"

"Yes?"

"Can we make exploding seals?!"

(Little did any of them know the amount of devastation that was yet to come.)

* * *

Naruto frowns at his seal. He'd done it as carefully as possible, with chakra-infused ink and paper, like Sakura-chan's kaa-san told him to do! 

...It looks wrong.

"That looks wrong, Naruto-kun." Sakura observes, standing by his side. Naruto glances at her seal. It looks much closer to the textbook one than his does. His has jagged lines and crooked ones, places where the brush slipped or his hand trembled. Hers is still wobbly, but smoother. Where his circles look like rectangles that have been smashed in by a mace, hers looks like watery ovals. 

Does his even _work_?

"Sakura-chan, how do you use these?"

"Umm. Push chakra into it-"

Naruto pushes chakra into it before Sakura could finish her sentence.

"-But never do it unsupervised." Sakura blinks at Naruto's seal. The lines, misshapen as they are, were unraveling before her eyes. 

She'd never seen seals do that before, but- smart kid she was- quickly deduced what was happening.

Judging by the rate of the unraveling, they had six seconds. 

Six seconds before the seal exploded and they both died.

Sakura knew how exploding seals worked, they let out a wave of chakra. Depending on the amount of chakra, the wave will be bigger or smaller. The chakra is often katon, which means everything in the wave's radius burned, or if you were close enough, blew up. 

They were definitely close enough. They would definitely blow up. They would definitely not survive.

Five seconds now.

_No_, Sakura thinks dizzily. She still had to go see Ino.

Four.

She still had to rematch with Shikamaru.

Three.

Sakura can't die. She can't. She tugs Naruto behind her, forcing him to drop the seal, but it was too late to run.

Two.

Sakura pushes. She pushes chakra. All of it, everywhere. What does she have to lose?

One.

_She can't die._

Zero.

_ **Boom.** _

* * *

Sakura's eyes are squeezed so tight, and Sakura's arm blocks Naruto's view.

They never see the wooden wall that is summoned from the ground itself, from roots deep and forgotten within the earth called to the surface by the will and chakra of a tiny girl. 

The seal explodes in a flash of ink and chakra and utter destruction. The world is lit up gold and red and white for a second, blasting everything around it to cinders. It was done wrong, the squiggly lines and incorrect runes manifesting as the implosion of the seal, made to work only by the sheer_ amount_ of chakra Naruto fed.

If anyone was looking, for a split second, the explosion looked like a fox, licks of fiery tails waving in the air. But no one was looking and it flickered into nothing a moment later, the fire and devastation flaring out in a ripple of heat and death, but it was _there_.

The wooden shield held fast for three breaths, before it dissipated into cinders, taking the brunt of the damage from the two children. 

There was no witness to the first use of natural Mokuton in decades.

However, there were witnesses to the aftermath.

* * *

One second, Sakura was there, screaming. 

The next, there was nothing except demolition. 

Then, nothing. 

Sakura was limp in his arms, burns rising over the skin exposed through her dress. 

Naruto didn't understand what happened. There was pain lashing over his forearms and legs, there was the weight of his friend on his lap, but there was his overwhelming sense of shellshock. 

"...Sakura-chan....?"

No response.

Naruto's hands flit to her arm before realizing the state of her skin. 

"W-what happened?!"

There was burns on the ground, on him, on Sakura. They spread in a circular ring around where the seal had been, thick and black and horrendous. Ash lays thick on the ground, marring Naruto's clothing. His jacket and pants are no longer orange but an ugly grey. Sakura's dress is in the same state.

"Sakura!!" 

She's unresponsive to his calls. Naruto can feel his eyes tearing up. "_Sakura!_"

"_Wake up!_"

She doesn't.


	7. even harsh waters have reprieves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Naruto is told he's being stupid, and Sakura's hospital room gets visitors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art is an explosion.

Ino sees Naruto again a week later.

"For someone so... orange, you're hard to find." Ino says, flinging herself onto the Academy roof.

Naruto flinches harshly, like his body has been jolted with electricity. 

"Also, Sakura's not dead. She's in the hospital. Chakra-exhaustion, the doctors said." 

Ino sits beside Naruto, hugging her knees to her chest. Naruto scoots away. Ino scoots closer.

"What happened?"

Naruto whimpers. "You should be mad."

"Why?"

"_I did it,_ that's why! I- I blew up the seal, even though S-Sakura-chan told me _not to!_ She... She _almost died_ and it was _my fault!!"_

Ino huffs. "It's not your fault. Your fault would be you intentionally blowing up the seal to hurt Sakura. Okay... Maybe it's a little your fault since you didn't follow directions, but Sakura's not going to blame you. I won't either."

The boy sniffs, ducking his head into his arms. Ino sighs. He did know that she already saw his tears, right?

"Sakura's going to be fine. Ninjas experience chakra-exhaustion all the time! But you... Instead of crying on rooftops, how about we go visit Sakura?" Ino suggests.

"She won't want to see me."

"She'll be the judge of that. C'mon." Ino stands up and dusts off her dress, extending a hand to Naruto.

Naruto allows himself to be pulled to his feet.

* * *

Chakra-exhaustion is boring, Sakura finds out.

She's not allowed to go out until her chakra coils recover from their burnt state, and jarring movements hurt. The doctors said that because the chakra coils are connected to her nervous system, she's gonna be sore for a long time. Also, Sakura's not allowed to use chakra for two months to allow her small chakra pool to regain their full- but admittedly still meager- capacity.

Which is fine, really. Although she is enrolled in ninja academy, Sakura has diligently kept up with the textbook schoolwork while in the hospital, and practical training doesn't start until next semester anyway. And using chakra only comes in their third year.

Boring.

And she'd only been conscious for two days.

Sakura groans, leaning back only to realize she was already cushioned against her one hospital-provided pillow. 

The pillow sucked.

The girl huffs and wills her chakra coils to heal faster. Surely, that could happen if she tried hard enough?

But this wasn't a manga.

Sakura emits a disgusted sigh and slumps down onto her bed (Also hospital-issued. Also sucks.).

_Boring._

The door banging open was the most interesting thing that happened all day.

"Sakura! I'm here!! And I brought visitors!!" Ino shouts, too loud for the tiny room.

"You're almost as loud as Naruto-kun, Ino-chan." Sakura smiles nonetheless.

Ino hustles in, carrying a bouquet of flowers as large as her head. She places it on Sakura's lunch tray. 

Sakura squints at the blossoms. Flower-arrangement was the one subject Ino was better than her in, but she recognized some of the blooms. Irises, pansies, and... a fluffy white flower. Camilla? 

"Is this many flowers necessary?" Sakura asks.

"Only the best for your first near-death experience, Sakura! But don't make me get any more, okay? When will you be out of here anyway?" Ino chatters, mindlessly rearranging the petals.

"A week, probably? I'm not allowed to use chakra for two months, though."

"Booo." Ino pouts. 

"It's not like we're doing anything with it in class anyway."

"Speaking of class, I brought your homework." Ino digs in her bag and presents Sakura with a neat stack of papers.

Sakura hums as she flips through the packet. An essay on the second Hokage, several math problems, a hiragana worksheet. Nothing she can't make up. "Anything else?"

"Also, Naruto!" 

Ino steps to the side to present the blond, who ducks his head nervously.

The pinkette looks up and smiles. "Hi, Naruto-kun!"

Said boy glances up, and his eyes watering are visible even from this distance. Naruto stays still for a moment before turning into a blubbering mess. "Sakura-chan!! I didn't mean it, I promise! I'm sorry you got hurt I won't do it again I'll listen to everything your scary kaa-chan tells me to even if it seems stupid _and-"_

The door bangs open again, mid-speech.

"So I'm scary, huh?" Mebuki steps in carrying a large bag, offering a wave to Ino. "Ino-chan, Naruto-kun." 

Naruto had flung himself halfway onto Sakura's hospital bed. He flushes red and topples off immediately. "Haruno-san!"

Mebuki grins. "I brought you little seal-masters something!" She raises her bag in the air.

Sakura perks up, leaning forward. "What is it?!"

Naruto's eyes fill with interest as well, jumping from his collapsed position into a sitting one. 

Mebuki sets the bag onto the bed, and all three children scoot over to investigate. 

"Brushes?! Ink?"

"Paper... And a calligraphy book?"

Ino frowns in confusion. "What does calligraphy have to do with seals?"

"Calligraphy is a very important skill for a seal-master. In order to be capable of drawing intricate seals such as chakra-restrictions and chakra-storage, one must be well-versed in calligraphy. If a seal is not drawn right, it will implode, as evidenced by last time." Naruto shrinks inward guiltily. "Calligraphy helps build fine motor-skills and smooth handwriting, both of which are vital for a seal-master." Mebuki lectures.

"What."

"Calligraphy helps you write prettier so you can draw better seals." Sakura helpfully translates.

"Ah. So they don't go boom." Ino says. 

"Exactly! And since Saku-chan is in the hospital and unable to go on adventures outside, I thought you kids could practice calligraphy instead."

Ino shrugs. "Sounds fun."

* * *

It was not fun.

Three days later, the trio had spilled two ink bottles (over the hospital-issued sheets, and although they were horribly thin Naruto still felt bad), went through enough paper to wallpaper the entire hospital room, and were still not any closer to imitating the perfect script of the textbook.

But then again, Naruto was pretty sure the textbook calligraphy was drawn by angels. There's no way human hands could make something that beautiful.

The calligraphy was stunning. Naruto could stare at them for hours. They were so... _perfect,_ every stroke swooping like graceful swans. Each kanji ended with a flourish, that despite how much Naruto wanted to copy, couldn't. His looked like shattered glass or broken sticks. 

Ino's was better. Hers were elegant, pretty. The strokes were thin though, and watery. Also she often got the kanji themselves wrong.

Sakura's was textbook clean but blocky. Each sweep of the brush didn't glide like the examples', she cut them off as if writing an essay. Her calligraphy looked like a robot made them, or if they were printed. Which, as Sakura's kaa-chan made clear, not how calligraphy was supposed to be.

It was supposed to be _art._

Although, his looked like they were devoured by a beast. There were places where the ink blotted thick and dark and where it skimmed off into a hair. Places where he pressed too hard and the kanji came out blotchy and thick. 

At least his kanji was correct, if not legible.

But it wasn't art, which he despaired over.

_(Yet.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uzumaki Naruto does not give up, dattebayo!!!


	8. what brews beneath the surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura has a new class project and Naruto has his final.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN SO LONG MY COMPUTER BROKE AND I'M SHITTY AT WRITING ON A PHONE AND IDK WHEN IT'S GONNA BE REPLACED ack
> 
> good news: we have 2 chapters!!!  
bad news: update schedule just got thrown into a hurricane (please bear with me!!)
> 
> This chapter is kinda short but I hope the next chapter makes up for it.

The first day back, Sakura is handed a flowerpot.

She made up her finals yesterday and passed with no trouble. ("As expected!" Ino had said.)

However, getting up to date on the current class project would require some work. Their new upper-class teacher, Iruka-sensei, had explained what he could.

Apparently they were supposed to grow a plant of their choosing. In order to pass, the plant must survive the year and bear fruit.

"It's part of the 'fostering shinobi/civilian connections' program," Iruka had informed. "Also, good practice for your future genin missions!"

"How is this supposed to help with genin missions?!" Sakura glares at her soil-filled pot. Only the size of a small bucket, Sakura couldn't see how this dinky thing was meant to grow a single vegetable, much less help her prep for her future jobs.

"Patience, Sakura." Ino strokes her flowerpot lovingly. Sakura bets Ino has lots of experience with plants, what with her family flower shop and all.

"What are you growing?" The blonde asks, eyes still on her pot.

Sakura shrugs. "I don't know. Onions? Those seem easy."

Ino hums absently, focused on her own plant. "You could cook something out of them when they finish growing."

"And it was one of the only plants left." Having arrived late due to her hospital stay, most of the plants provided were already taken by the other students. There were only the most common vegetables left. Sakura bemoaned her misfortune briefly.

"That's alright," Ino says brightly, finally turning towards Sakura. "I'll help you with it!"

Sakura smiles. "Thanks, Ino!"

* * *

Naruto actually studied for his final exams. (He never did before, but at Sakura's insistence, he tried.)

Hypothetically, he should know all the topics taught this year. (The hand signs for the beginner three jutsu, the founding of Konoha and the reign of the first Hokage.)

But as Naruto sat in the far back of the classroom, surrounded by students diligently taking their tests and the scratch-scratch of pencils writing, he couldn't focus. The words swam in front of his eyes, his pencil (the second one, his first broke when he pressed too hard) was tapping against the desk instead of moving across the paper, the ambient noises of the other children seemed too loud.

The only thing filled in on his paper was his name, a messy Uzumaki Naruto scrawled in the top corner.

The clock ticked. Fourteen minutes had passed since Mizuki-sensei handed out the test. Forty-six minutes left.

Nothing written.

In some corner of his mind, Naruto was terrified. What was he supposed to do?! He couldn't think, couldn't read, couldn't-

In another corner, Naruto was calm. He already failed this test before (twice, graduation to the upper class had eluded him twice), what was one more time?

For a second Naruto had a vision of himself, gray-haired and wrinkled, sitting in the same room among a throng of unfamiliar children taking the same test.

Panic rose, how long would he stay here? Would he be twenty, fifty, seventy, still an Academy student? Was passing this test even possible?

Naruto squints at the first question. "_The Shodaime Hokage, Senju..._" the words dissolved into unidentifiable lines, whorls of illegible inky black strokes. That was weird, he could read them perfectly back in Sakura's house.

But even if he could read it, Naruto wouldn't be able to answer it anyway. That was how it worked, he was dead-last, an idiot, someone who was destined to fail._ Fail, fail, fail._

His pencil dropped to the desk with a clatter. Mizuki-sensei shot him a harsh glare for the interruption.

Naruto didn't look up.

He sat there, immobile.

Fail, fail, fail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naruto Is Not actually stupid. I repeat, Naruto isn't stupid. 
> 
> (It's something more :3)
> 
> On an unrelated note, wow, Sakura and plants!! I wonder what could be happening here...


	9. swim down deeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto bemoans his test score, and jutsu is discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear i am gearing up for something interesting happening
> 
> Me: i want this fic to have LOTS OF PLOT  
Also me: WHY AREN'T WE AT THE CLIMAX ALREADY?!
> 
> My update schedule will be chaotic asf from now on but I'll try to keep it as consistent as possible!! (If there's any grammar/spelling issues hmu plz editing on a phone sucks)

"We have a problem!" Naruto starts.

Ino is unimpressed. "What else is new?"

The blond scowls. "Sakura-chan!! Tell Ino to be nice!"

Sakura doesn't look up from her book. "Keep me out of this."

"But! But my test!!" Naruto wails, waving around a slim sheet of paper.

Ino snatches it out of his hands and gives it a once-over. She winces. "Ouch."

The pinkette finally glances over. "What did he get?"

Ino wordlessly hands over the test results.

"Yikes."

A big, fat _6_ was circled in red.

"Why a six?" Sakura asks.

"I only answered the true-false questions?" Naruto confesses guiltily.

Ino chips in, "And from the looks of it, you only got one right."

"Two, actually."

The trio sits in silence.

"How does this even happen?"

Naruto groans, dropping his head into his hands dramatically. "I don't know!! I couldn't focus until the very end and I panicked and just wrote random things!!"

"That doesn't sound right, you focused just fine on your seals." Sakura frowns thoughtfully.

"What symptoms did you experience during the test?"

"Symptoms?" The boy tilts his head, confused. "I guess I was kinda dizzy... And the words kept being weird..."

"Weird?" Ino asks.

"Like. Wibbly-wobbly." Naruto swirls a finger in front of his face.

Sakura offers her book to Naruto. "Read the first sentence for me."

"'_Therefore investing in worms would be a wise choice-_'" Naruto breaks off and flips the book over. "What book is this? 'Agriculture of the Fire Country'? Really, Sakura-chan?"

"It's for our shinobi-civilian project. We have to raise plants. Sakura's helping at my family's flower shop to get a better grasp of how plants work." Ino informs. "I lent the book to her, we have lots of copies. It's a very popular article."

"Oh, I remember that project! We had to build stuff out of wood, except no one would let me do anything and I got a bad score." Naruto pouts at the memory.

"If you were in our year we'd let you do stuff." Sakura says determinedly.

Ino nods. "Your classmates suck."

Naruto grins. "I'd rather make seals anyway. I've been practicing my handwriting and it's gotten much better!"

Sakura hops off her chair. "Let's show my mom then!"

"Yeah, maybe then we'll finally be able to get into the actual 'making seals' stuff." Ino mutters, but follows the other two downstairs anyway.

* * *

"Okay, so here's the plan." Ino smacks her palm on the table. "We can finally get started on our jutsu!"

"Right, I forgot about that..." Naruto says sheepishly.

"Ino and I have gotten a few ideas," Sakura trots up with a large scroll cradled in her arms. She unrolls it on the table.

In neat handwriting on the top, it says "_Minimizing Jutsu (Seal?)_", followed by two paragraphs.

Sakura points at the first paragraph. "We can mimic the Akimichi clan jutsu, which means we have to find a way to suck out chakra from our bodies and stuff them in seals to force them to grow smaller."

"That'll be risky," Ino says. "If we can't make our bodies grow smaller while the chakra is being sucked out, we might die from lack of nutrients."

Sakura sighs. "I know. What do you think, Naruto?"

Naruto frowns. "What if we had a backup source of chakra? Like, when we lose control of the seal we can just draw on the backup source and we won't... You know... die?" He trails off hesitantly at the end.

Ino hands Sakura a pencil and the pinkette scribbles it down on the scroll.

"Second plan," Sakura taps the pencil on the _2._ "Transportation seal."

"What?" Ino asks. "We didn't talk about this one."

"I talked with my mom. She said it's possible, but hard."

"Like the entire jutsu!" Naruto points out cheerfully.

"Yeah, we knew what we were getting into. Now explain." Ino says.

"Alright... So picture this. You go into a seal. When the seal accesses your chakra pathways to let you in, it operates on the pathways. Like the opposite of the byakugan, instead of obstructing them, it opens them."

"Wait, even if the chakra pathways are open, isn't that the same as the Akimichi plan?" Naruto says.

Sakura shakes her head. "Not exactly. Since the chakra pathways are open, hypothetically, the extra chakra can just leak out into the seal by itself, instead of us having to push chakra into the seal. After the transformation happens inside the seal, we get spit out of the seal. That way, our chakra will be stored inside the seal and ourselves will be outside the seal, which is the ideal goal."

Both blondes stare at Sakura with awe. "How do you know this?"

The pinkette gestures to a stack of papers in the corner. "Reading."

"Bleh." Naruto sticks his tongue out. "Eww." Ino wrinkles her nose, tugging the scroll out of Sakura's hands.

"You're gonna have to learn how to research someday, Naruto." Sakura reprimands. 

"I'd rather get better at sealing!"

"Oh, right. My mom has something to give you, I think-"

"Enough chit-chat!" Ino interrupts, placing the scroll down, "Both plans have potential. But before we get into the details, how are we going to make this?"

Silence.

Ino sighs. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

* * *

Naruto does not have a lot of worldly possessions.

Okay, that's an understatement. His bedroom was almost completely bare, white walls interrupted only by a small futon and table. A pile of ratty clothes- orange, of course- was thrown carelessly into a corner. The standard three-room apartment offered to shinobi orphans seemed larger than normal with the absence of furniture.

Which was understandable. The orphan apartments were made for orphan genin, who had a steady paycheck of jobs. Before that, they were cared for by the local orphanages. The Third Hokage had to pull some strings to get Naruto an apartment and monthly stipends after he got kicked out of the fifth orphanage.

It made sense to not have an excess of spare cash. Still, Naruto's home was a stark contrast to Sakura's house-slash-shop.

Naruto hadn't noticed until today.

(That was a lie. Naruto knew, after their sleepover, that his home was... different. Plainer, emptier, the direct opposite of Sakura's cheerful house.)

But it wasn't until the blond walks through the door lugging a bag (carrying extra paper, a calligraphy book, and a used brush set donated by Sakura's mom, much to Naruto's excitement) that it sinks in.

Sakura's room was cluttered. With books, old papers, pens and pencils and stuffed animals. It may be the small size (there wasn't a lot of room if you live above a sealing shop) but Sakura's room had always seemed...

Alive. Overflowing with _Sakura_, identifiable in every stray paper and excess of books. Even if Naruto hadn't been told, he would know that it was Sakura's room, from the pink wallpaper to the scrolls scattered on the futon.

Naruto had nothing _Naruto_ in his bedroom.

White walls, futon, table, clothes.

Empty.

The bags drop from Naruto's lax fingers, distracting him from the sad emptiness. Naruto huffs. He'll get more stuff when he reached genin, believe it!

The blond hurries to pull the contents out of the bag, dumping them on the floor in his haste. Shuffling the blank papers into a neat stack, Naruto deposits them on the table carefully, next to the brush set and book.

His apartment looked better already, and the boy grins proudly at the slightly less pathetic room.

Naruto is a ninja, not an interior decorator, but he has some ideas.

He gets to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next- ino's pov (a rare occurrence) and sakura spends time with her plant.
> 
> I won't be replying to comments for a while but i see them and I appreciate them!!! A lot!!! Kudos to everyone who left a comment I love you all!!


	10. all hail the undertow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto's career in interior decorating is flourishing, in direct contrast to his academic record. Sakura picks up a part time job and Ino briefly communes with the plants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna include an Ino pov but. it didn't fit. agh. NEXT CHAPTER I PROMISE!!!

Naruto wakes with his chin pressed to paper and his trademark whiskers smeared with ink.

“Ehh?!”

Flailing, he realizes he fell asleep sitting before a table. Naruto groans as his legs come awake with pins and needles. Ow. What was he doing sleeping here and not his futon?

Blearily opening half-asleep eyes, the blond turns to his uncomfortable temporary pillow. On the table is a half-used jar of ink, brush still inside, a centerpiece of black amid white sheets of paper. Naruto frowns and shuffles the papers into a neat pile. Lifting a random sheet, he finds messily written kanji and hiragana. Calligraphy? He probably fell asleep practicing.

And then he turns around.

The paper drifts to the ground, unheeded.

Plastered to the wall were dozens of seals, calligraphy, black streaks upon white paper upon white walls. Ranging from the first base for barrier tags to calligraphic sentences scrawled in wobbly lines, the wall was stacked with papers upon papers upon papers. 

Naruto steps closer, eyes wide. He tugs on the first seal he can reach and it falls off with his touch. Another smaller slip of rectangular paper flutters to the ground, stuck to the back of the first one. He picks up the smaller sheet, recognizing the contours of the lines there. A swirl in the middle, lines wrapping around it. _Sticking tag_. 

A spiral-style seal that stuck two objects together. This one was hurriedly made, the swirl was not precisely placed in the center of the paper and the lines were too close together, speaking to its poor quality. One of the safest seals to make, and simple to boot.

He remembers this.

_ I made this? _

_ Last night. _ The brush and ink, dipping in and out again and again. Words appearing across crisp white paper with each passing of his brush. Naruto himself, seated in his room writing like someone possessed, brush frantic as his hand raced to finish each seal and character and cover up the empty space of his walls.

He must have passed out midway.

Then three more thoughts flitted through his mind, each with increasing urgency.

One, his walls weren’t bare anymore! Some part of his mind rejoiced at that fact, dancing around exuberantly. Lonely, white walls were no more, good riddance.

Two, Haruno-san was going to be _so mad_ that he made his first (technically second) seal without her supervision.

Third… Judging by the brightness of the sun that lit his room, he was going to be late for school.

Shoot.

* * *

“Naruto-kun,” comes his death sentence. His death sentence wears a strained smile and folded hands.

“Mizuki-sensei.” Naruto greets obediently.

“Come over here, I want to talk for a bit.”

The rest of the class watches in open curiosity as Naruto is beckoned out of the classroom. Naruto himself feels like his insides have been doused in ice water. Being told _“I want to talk”_ never meant anything good. Frantically mentally flicking through all his recent altercations, the blond inwardly groans. Was this about him coming late to school and entering through the window? He hasn’t been called out of the room before for that, though. His latest prank? But that was over a week ago, wasn’t it too late to discuss now? Homework? Attendance? Classroom behavior? The possibilities come one after the other as he stumbles into the teacher’s office.

Naruto was jerked out of the downward spiral by a paper being shoved into his face.

_ Six _ is the first thing he sees.

The single digit number bolded and circled in bright red. His latest test score? Naruto steps backwards and studies the paper. His grade sheet? There’s the rest of his grades, in similar shades of completely abysmal. As his eyes travel downward, he sees his attendance record. Misbehavior record. Teacher’s notes. Each scribbled with red. And at the bottom-

His class average. Final grade.

Instead of a D, or C, or B, or A, or S,

There was nothing.

“Naruto-kun,” Mizuki-sensei says again. “Your grades are, to put it simply, failing.”

“So?” Naruto knows his grades were failing, they were probably failing all his academic career. He never especially cared, he didn’t need to take a test on a shinobi mission. What made this time different?

“You were late for test retakes.”

The blond froze. Test retakes. He forgot all about them! A vague recollection of a remark from Mizuki-sensei that the test retake might be the only way to save his grade passes through his mind. 

He could have saved his grade.

He had one chance.

He missed the chance without even realizing.

Mizuki-sensei didn’t give Naruto a chance to process this revelation. “Next semester, when it starts, you’ll be with the first-years.”

The Academy had five years. Five classes, with about twenty students each. The number started large and petered out as students dropped out and quit the shinobi life.

The first years were the eight-year olds. The second years were the nine-year olds. The third years were the ten-year olds, and so forth until twelve-year olds.

Naruto was with the third-years instead of his age group, due to Sandaime-jiji letting him start two years early.

Now he was effectively being demoted two years.

Because he wasn’t good enough? Because he was too small, too stupid? Because of his behavior and pranks?

Classes don’t really matter to Naruto. In his mind they were simply obstacles he had to sit through until he became a full-fledged shinobi. He could care less if his textbooks were third-year or first, if his homework was advanced or not.

But being declassed…

This felt like rejection.

Like being kicked out of the orphanage again. It really shouldn’t surprise him at this point, but it still hurt. They didn’t want him. He wasn’t good enough to be wanted. Wasn’t able to be loved.

He wasn’t enough.

“Dismissed.” Mizuki-sensei says. Should Naruto call Mizuki “sensei” anymore? He wasn’t his teacher any longer. Mizuki didn’t want him.

Naruto didn’t head back to his classroom.

He runs out of the school.

* * *

Sakura’s days were very busy. This was accredited, in part, to her new after-school job.

Ino had promised to help her with her project and had come up with an idea.

Which was working at the Yamanaka flower shop.

To get used to plants.

_ Brilliant idea, Ino. _

Sakura’s mother had green-lighted the idea, with the ultimatum that Sakura had to be home before eight. Which left her with four hours at the flower shop.

It was surprisingly boring.

The second trimester of school was just ending, leaving Konoha in winter. While Fire Country’s climate was admittedly incredibly unsuited for snow, there was a noticeable lack of plants. Or rather, plant demand. 

“It’s always like this,” Ino’s mother, Yamanaka Inako, had said. “We get most of our orders in spring and summer, and winter is what we refer to as the dry season.”

There was still a handful of regulars, with old Maoki-san coming in once every week to purchase a bouquet and sometimes a flustering teenager who stammered out their order for a couple of roses. (Young love- so reliable.)

Ino had always handled those cases with ease, white-blonde hair waving as she confidently guided the customer to the display cases and brought them the flower they needed. Sakura was left to replenish the flower stock, scurrying to and fro from the shop and the Yamanaka greenhouses, which grew various plants year-round.

The first day working, Ino had led her to the greenhouses. They were easily distinguishable, towering glass domes filled with thick mist (the effect of a mix of katon and suiton jutsu) and traces of green, evidence of the plants they held. The indoor temperature was a shock, warm and balmy against Sakura’s skin compared to the winter chill. There were four greenhouses in all, each housing different species of plants. Sakura spent most of her time in the largest greenhouse, named _Hana_ for the flowers grown inside. 

While there were a variety of flowers available at the shop, the shop itself was too small to fit every species. To compromise, Sakura was sent ferrying blooms from the greenhouse to shop.

It was probably doing great things to her endurance training, but the five-minute distance between the two destinations soon started to feel exhausting after her sixth run of the day.

Sakura wonders what it was like during spring or summer, when Konoha’s fiery sun beat down on its citizens.

Hell on earth, probably, she concludes grimly.

Ino distracts Sakura from her thoughts. “Hey, look at this!”

Turning around, Sakura sees Ino cradling her flowerpot like a fragile infant. She hands the pot to Sakura, who catches it on reflex.

“It’s blooming!” The blonde grins happily, cheeks smudged with dirt and smile radiant.

Sakura squints closer. The coarse dirt looks… exactly like dirt. “I don’t see anything.”

“Trust me.” Ino says with all the confidence of someone who spent her whole life around plants.

“What about mine?” Sakura asks hesitantly. She throws a glance to the shelf behind the main counter where her own pot rests, marked clearly with a white name tag. Ino lifts the pot in her hands, holding it above her head dramatically.

“I see…” Ino frowns. “What plant did you pick?”

“Onions.”

Ino’s frown grows deeper. “It looks weird.”

“What do you see?” Sakura steps closer.

“I… I don’t know.” Ino turns toward Sakura, and the pinkette nearly screams.

“Your eyes!”

Ino’s eyes were their usual shade of pale blue, which was normal.

They were also pupil less.

The blonde tilts her head, eyes still terrifying. “That? It’s a part of our family jutsu.”

“Your family jutsu allows you to… make your eyes scary?”

Ino scoffs. “No. Well, yes. But that’s not all! I can mind-read!” She proclaims, still holding the pot. “Also, the extra chakra running through my eyes sharpens my vision. Like most doujutsu. So I can see the tiny pieces starting to bud up.”

“Ah.” Sakura nods along. Doujutsu were well taught in school, what with Konoha being the breeding ground of so many.

“Anyway,” Ino presses the flowerpot into Sakura’s hands. “I bet yours still needs time to grow. Wanna go get anmitsu later?”

“Okay.” 

Sakura forces a smile and takes back the flowerpot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i'll update at least once a month I swear  
also me: this counts as being on schedule right??
> 
> i already have most of the next chapter written tho so hopefully it'll be a shorter wait!!
> 
> I MAY NOT REPLY TO YOUR COMMENTS BUT I SEE THEM AND THEY FUEL ME!!! 
> 
> thanks to anyone who left a comment ur the best!! <3


	11. embraced by the foam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Naruto's test, ft. Sakura's attempts at comfort.

"Hey, Sakura-chan." Naruto clambers into the playhouse. Sakura looks up from her staring contest against the dirt inside her ceramic vase.

"Naruto-kun?" Sakura puts down the flower pot. "You seem..." _Sad?_ Naruto didn't have the usual enthusiastic glow around him, head turned downwards and eyes stuck on the ground. Sakura could practically see the dull-blond spikes of his hair drooping dejectedly.

"Weird," She settles on.

"Huh? Do I?" The blonde looks up from the dirt floor of the playhouse.

"You aren't smiling."

Naruto blinks. "Oh. Sorry."

_Don't apologize_, Sakura thinks. _That doesn't make anyone happy. I want to see you happy._

Sakura never had to worry about this before. Naruto had always seemed so bright, a sun. Inextinguishable, effervescent. She never wondered about him going out, being sad, because it seemed like he never would. It seemed like it was impossible to put an Uzumaki out, impossible it put Naruto out.

Because Naruto was the embodiment of an Uzumaki, wasn't he? He was everything that Sakura's myths said, everything her mother and father's scrolls told her about the lost clan.

Uzumaki were unbeatable. Naruto was unbeatable.

This was fact.

_Right?_

Sakura never had to worry about Naruto falling.

But this sullen, un-smiling Naruto was not... him. Not the Uzumaki that Sakura so revered.

_How do I get Naruto back?_

"What happened?" Sakura asks, finally.

The boy pulls his knees up onto his chest. No response. Sakura had only seen him like this once, in her hospital room.

"Was it... Um. You ran out of ramen?" Sakura guesses.

"Ramen...? Oh. No." Naruto says blankly.

If Sakura was alarmed before, now she's panicked. _He didn't react to ramen!!_

What could have desensitized Naruto to his favorite food?

"Seals?"

Naruto shakes his head, swirling a finger absentmindedly in the sand on the ground.

What else could have affected Naruto like this?

_Calligraphy? His house? School?_

"Your... test?" _Didn't he get a bad grade on that?_ Sakura frowns, vaguely remembering the ruckus.

Naruto jolts like he's been electrocuted.

_Bingo._

"What happened to it?" Sakura prods further.

"Mizuki-sensei told me..." Naruto mumbles, burying his face in his knees.

"Told you what? You already failed. What could be worse? You failed the class?"

Silence.

Sakura looks over. Naruto seems like he's attempting to commune with the floor. The quiet is suffocating.

The pinkette winces. "...Sorry. Should I not have said that? Kaa-chan said I was sometimes rude and if I'm rude I should apologize and I apologized so please forgive me I won't say it again-"

"No."

"...Sorry."

"Stop saying that."

"S- Okay." Sakura rubs the side of her flowerpot nervously. "What's going to happen now?"

Naruto shrugs. "I dunno," he says softly.

"We'll help you." Sakura reaches over, laying her hand on Naruto's knee.

Naruto turns his head, blue eyes staring at Sakura. "How?"

_I don't know_. "You'll still have friends. I'm your friend! Ino's working at the shop right now but. I think she'll definitely agree..." Sakura trails off. _Is_ _that_ _enough? How do I help him?_

"You shouldn't say that..." Naruto blinks rapidly.

"But it's true."

"You'll leave me. Like-"

"Like?" Sakura prompts softly.

"My teacher. My class." Naruto's eyes shine in the dim light.

"Not me. Not yet."

"Oh."

A tear drips down Naruto's cheek.

"What if you do?" The blonde asks, the words tumbling out desperately.

"I won't."

"How do I know?"

_We don't. We have to believe_. "Uzumakis don't break their promises."

_Even if I'm not one... Is this okay? If I make a promise to an Uzumaki, that counts, right?_

"Y-you're not an-! An Uzumaki!" Naruto's crying now, fat droplets rolling down his face.

Something pangs in Sakura's heart. "...I know."

_I'm not an Uzumaki_.

"But. Haruno Sakura doesn't break promises!" She declares to the playhouse, Naruto a witness. "You can hold a grudge against me forever if I do!"

"If you do... I-" Naruto struggles to come up with a suitable punishment, "I won't buy you ramen anymore!!"

"I buy my own ramen when we go out to eat anyway. And is that the worst punishment you can think of?" _That's the Naruto I know_. Sakura laughs, relieved.

"Hey! Sakura-chan! Stop laughing! Ramen's very important!" Naruto huffs, grinning hesitantly through his tears.

"Fine, let's get Ichiraku then." Sakura stands up, half-slouching to avoid braining herself on the low ceiling. She extends a hand to help Naruto up.

Naruto takes it. "Last one there pays!!"

"What? Hey! Unfair!!" Sakura scowls, an expression copied from Ino.

"Hurry up, Sakura-chan!"

"Wait, my flowerpot-!"

* * *

"I'm never doing that again. I feel like I'm going to puke."

"Eh, why, Sakura-chan?"

"We _raced_ and then had an _eating contest_, my stomach is dying." Sakura groans, slumped against the counter. A mortifying collection of empty ramen bowls surround the duo. She can feel her wallet weeping already.

"Ugh." The pinkette groans again. For emphasis.

At least Naruto was feeling better, his namesake ramen seemingly rejuvenating the boy. The evidence of his crying was erased with enough noodles to murder her allowance. _How could he eat that much?_ Naruto was a bottomless pit. Sakura would be in awe if she wasn't footing the bill.

"I won though, dattebayo!!"

"What do you want?"

"Um. You're already paying, so. Nothing, I guess! Oh. Wait." Naruto perks up. "Bring Ino-chan with us next time!!"

"She'll be disgusted at your eating habits." Sakura sighs.

"The more the merrier!"

Sakura smiles. "Yeah.

Glancing at the time, she startles. "Ack, we got to leave. I promised to visit Ino-chan after her shift!"

Hurriedly digging out her small pink wallet and depositing some coins on the counter amid the bowls, Sakura grabbed her flowerpot and stood up. She was halfway through the door when she realized Naruto wasn't moving. The pinkette looked back. "You coming?"

"Huh?" Naruto stood motionless by the table.

"Aren't you going with me?"

"I'm... invited?"

"Yeah, you're my friend." Sakura says. Hadn't she made that clear? Of course Naruto was invited. "Ino would like to see you too." Sakura coaxes. "She's been so busy she couldn't make it to any of our meetings at the park in days."

"...Alright! I'm coming, dattebayo!" Naruto grins, running over. "Let's run!"

"H-hey, no running-!!" Sakura gasps, going after Naruto, who was already disappearing down the street. Stamina had never been her strongpoint, and she just ate. Her steps were wobbly as she chased after the blond.

"Wait, stop!" Lagging behind, Sakura tries to make herself go faster. The flowerpot in her arms was heavy. "Naruto-kun!!"

The boy was already out of sight. _Faster. Go faster!_

Sakura trips.

She shrieks as she tumbles toward the ground, arms flailing as the pinkette attempts to stop her fall. Sakura hits the ground with a _oomph._

The flowerpot flies out of her grasp and crashes onto the pavement, breaking into ceramic shards as the soil inside splatters across the ground.

A small, drooping sprout can be seen amid the dirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is my update schedule.
> 
> (it's once a month and I'm making a habit of procrastinating until the last day of every month, someone help me;;)


	12. heralding the high tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get an unreliable narrator, and some grieving over the tragic undeserved death of a plant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me updating on the last day of each month is a very precarious update schedule lmao;;

“You _what_.” Ino’s face contorted. Her nose scrunches up like Naruto and Sakura pushed a plate of rotten eggs toward her face instead of pieces of broken ceramic.

Naruto continued blubbering; his words garbled through his tears. “W-we were _running_ and-! And Sakura-chan tripped and the dirt went boom and her vase broke and her leg got scraped and there’s dirt on the sidewalk and and _and_-“

Sakura wasn’t in a much better state, albeit quieter. Staring blankly at the pieces of flowerpot in her hands, Sakura didn’t speak at all. It was as if she was trying to make up for Naruto’s nonstop talking, except she was so still it didn’t seem as if Sakura was aware of anything at all except the shards in her grasp.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Ino frowns, trying to puzzle together an explanation from Naruto’s desperate chatter. “So you ate… And then ran… And Sakura tripped… With the flowerpot in her hands.

“So that means…” Ino pauses, a sudden thought striking her. “Wait. What happened to the sprout?!”

“…It’s probably on the street. With the rest of the dirt.” Sakura murmurs, the first words she’s spoken since she was dragged by a panicked Naruto to the Yamanaka flowershop, where they met up with Ino.

The blonde droops visibly, sighing. “I’m sorry, Sakura. I know you spent a lot of time with the plant.”

Sakura slowly shakes her head. “I should have been more careful.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sakura-chan!! I shouldn’t have ran.” Naruto sobs, eyes watering. Ino offers him a rag to dry his tears on.

“Maybe we can try again? Use another seed? I’m sure Iruka-sensei will understand,” Ino suggests. “We have plenty of seeds in the greenhouse.”

“I’ll be late. The plant is due in two weeks.”

The civilian-shinobi exchange program lasted a semester. Students would work on their project independently and show their progress at the end of the semester for a final grade.

Since the plant was assigned in January, they had until the end of March to cultivate it as best they could.

Right now, mid-March, there was no way for Sakura to grow another seed in time without cheating or jutsu.

“Your plant was weird, anyway. It had hardly even sprouted! Are you sure you took the right seed?” Ino frowns, remembering the abnormal growth rate of Sakura’s sprout.

Sakura doesn’t look at her. “Does it matter now?”

“I’m sorry, Sakura-chan…” Naruto sniffles into the coarse fabric of the rag. His shoulders sag, eyes fixated on the floor.

Sakura shrugs listlessly. Although she was never the most emotive person to begin with, this current Sakura was so empty it was scary. Ino glances away, not wanting to see her friend in such a state. Her eyes land on the small clock on the counter of the flower shop. It declared _5:26_. “It’s late. You two should head home.”

_It will be better tomorrow. Right?_

“Okay.” Sakura leaves without a word, still clutching the remains of the flowerpot. Ino stares worriedly after her.

“Will Sakura-chan be alright?” Naruto asks, eyebrows furrowing together. His fingers fumble idly at the rag.

_If I say ‘She’ll be okay,” will that be a lie?_

Sakura was sensitive, reactive to every taunt and mocking insult. But Ino knew Sakura could survive that, Ami and the rest of her bullies’ words were only shallow, unimaginative insults spouted for cruel entertainment. How would she react to the death of something she spent months caring for?

Ino was always vaguely aware of Sakura’s civilian origins. But it had never been so evident that Sakura had grown up on fairytales instead of war stories, was unfamiliar with the inevitability of _loss_ etched into every shinobi’s bones. Ino had received clan training from a young age, the nature of her family’s jutsu requiring knowledge of psychology as well. She hadn’t experienced it, but at least knew what to expect when it came to losing something precious.

Sakura had not. In a way, Sakura was more naïve than herself or Naruto. Having known little of the hardships of having something you cared so much for slip through your fingers (literally, in this case), what would Sakura do now?

Maybe it was overtly dramatic of her to be grieving over a plant which wasn’t even fully grown.

…Better a dead plant than future dead comrades, Ino supposed.

“I don’t know,” she finally responded. “I don’t know if she’ll be okay.”

“Sakura-chan’s strong.”

And maybe she was, in Naruto’s eyes.

But…

Ino could only shrug. _I hope so._

* * *

”_Shinobi are forged of pain and loss._

_"I wish it wasn't so."_

Jiji-sama had once murmured idly, sadly, to the air of his office. It was one of the rare occasions Naruto was granted the privilege to sit in his office while the Sandaime did his paperwork.

At the time, Naruto was more focused on drawing ramen than obscure proverbs. He was pretty sure Jiji-sama wasn’t talking to him, anyway. The old man was more focused on the scattered reports than the child scrawling ink noodles on scrap paper in the corner of the room. Jiji-sama didn’t bring it up after he finished his work and took Naruto to Ichiraku’s either. Naruto had really only remembered the words because of the mention of _shinobi._

His aspiration.

Strong, capable, _acknowledged_. Shinobi were the most powerful people in the village, and they could beat up anyone who hurt them! No one dared badmouth a ninja! And the Hokage was the strongest of them all, spoken of in awed whispers by the populace. Naruto had seen the way everyone had smiled at Jiji-sama, grateful for his presence in a way they never were for Naruto’s. His brain drew a conclusion that seemed obvious at the time. _If I become the Hokage, everyone will treat me like that too!_

Ravenous for any mention of the idealistic figures he had built up in his head, Naruto had stuffed the statement in his memory.

It was soon forgotten, buried under schoolwork (which he barely paid attention to, shinobi didn’t need tests, anyway!), the civilians, and his friends (he had friends now! They were friends, weren’t they?).

What had brought that memory up now?

Was it Sakura’s plant…?

Naruto tossed and turned in his futon, finally rolling around to face the calligraphy-plastered walls he decorated a few days ago. He had been working on it in his free time, and the paper- which at first was only scattered in feeble patches on the walls- had increased in number and variety. While Naruto still had some way to go before complete wall domination, he was immensely proud of his achievements. Sure, sometimes he woke up to find slips of calligraphy on the floor due to the poor making of the sticking tags, but it was easy work to pump more chakra into the sticking tags and slap the paper back on. And yeah, sometimes the excess of chakra causes the ink to be fried off the seal entirely, but that’s part of the learning process!

He was getting better at sealwork and calligraphy, his hands didn’t tremble when holding a brush now.

Finding himself unable to sleep, Naruto slips out from the blankets, sitting down at the small table. He had spent his meager allowance on a small, overpriced cushion for a chair. His first furniture purchase! Even now, looking at the bright orange pillow brought him a sense of happy pride.

Which was quickly doused by the memory of the day’s events.

…Was it his fault?

Wasn’t it always his fault?

That was what they yelled on the streets. _Demon fox! It’s your fault my husband’s dead! Freak! Bastard kid, your fault I don’t have a job! **Pay the price, you shouldn’t have lived!**_

His fault he got kicked out of his class. His fault he messed up Sakura’s plant.

Is this why no one wanted to be friends with him?

_Then can I blame them?_

No one wanted to be friends with someone who messed up everything they touched, after all.

How long was it before Sakura and Ino realized that? _How long was it before they left him?_

No. _No._

That couldn’t happen.

They said they would stay. _They said they would stay!_

Frantic, Naruto reaches for a brush and ink, pulling the writing tools haphazardly across the desk with no regard for the way the black liquid splattered on the already dirty table. _It didn’t matter. He had to fix this, before Sakura and Ino left!_

They would leave one day. That was a fact. (No one wanted to be friends with a messed-up freak, a demon child, a no-good brat who failed at everything.)

But Naruto would be _damned_ if he didn’t try his hardest to keep them with him for as long as possible.

The brush settles in his hand. Despite everything, his strokes were steady on the paper from hours of practice.

_The base for a sealing tag, a simple square curving into a spiral shape. The runes alongside it, the matrix for channeling chakra. And then…_

_Two other attached bases, of differing sizes. In, out. Go in big, emerge small. Stay in stasis inside._

Naruto had never drawn these before.

No one had tried these before.

The prototype for a size changing seal, first designed by Sakura’s books and Mebuki’s knowledge.

Now brought to life by Naruto’s brush.

On seal paper, the design looked different from the pencil drawing he remembered.

Would it work? Naruto did not have the best memory. What if he screwed up? What if it failed?

_Was that worse than losing Sakura and Ino?_

No. Even if it exploded in his face, it would be better than being abandoned than his first, only friends.

If it was his fault, then he would fix it.

If it was Naruto’s destiny to mess up everything he touched, doomed to destroy every piece of happiness he grabbed, so be it.

But Naruto would not accept fate without a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unfortunately naruto is very insecure about his friendships in this fic... trying to represent the repercussions of neglect is hard... ack.
> 
> on another note, thanks for all the support!! i may not reply to comments but i read all of them!! they keep me going you're all amazing!


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